Global Vaccines
Global Vaccines, Inc is a mission-driven non-profit company applying state-of-the-art science and innovative business strategies to design and develop affordable vaccines for people in poor countries.
Origins
Founded in 2001 by Robert E. Johnston, Ph.D., Global Vaccines, Inc, was formed as a not-for-profit company, spinning out from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in order to develop new vaccines free from the limitations of high profit-margin requirements. The company develops platform vaccine technologies that can be applied to a broad spectrum of disease targets selected on the basis of global public health needs rather than market potential. It is located in the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina.
Challenges
Vaccines are the most cost-effective measure to PReVENT the suffering caused by infectious diseases prevalent in poor countries. Since many vaccine companies are for-profit, there are no financial incentives for these companies to further develop practical vaccines for these poor settings. Related research and development efforts are minimal since new vaccine technologies, which are and continue to be developed in academic and government institutions, face commercial realities that stand in the way of bringing new technologies to the people who need them most.
The Global Vaccines Solution
Global Vaccines, Inc, addresses the problems mentioned above by investing in and developing new, promising vaccine technologies and helping to market technologies that would otherwise languish if left alone without the incentives of commercial markets in order to serve the developing and undeveloped worlds. The following are current technologies that drive Global Vaccines.
Technology 1 – Novel Adjuvant
- This technology is a new type of biological adjuvant designed to greatly enhance both systemic and mucosal immunity when used in combination with inexpensive killed virus and subunit vaccines. The adjuvant technology has the capability of decreasing cost by a factor of ten or greater, increasing the effectiveness of some existing vaccines, and making other vaccines possible. GVI has been awarded a National Institutes of Health research grant (funded through 2010) of $5.3 million to study the adjuvant effect and to determine its utility in nonhuman primates. One of the grant reviewers stated that the technology “represents a significant advance in the field of vaccination.”
Technology 2 – New live attenuated virus vaccines
- This technology describes creating new live attenuated vaccines from scratch by combining different pieces of vaccine viruses and disease causing viruses together into a new vaccines strain. Global is applying this to the creation of a new type of vaccine for HIV, specifically for the strain of the virus circulating in sub-Saharan Africa. This work is being funded by the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI). This milestone driven grant extends through 2012 with a budget of $1.2 million for the first two years. Through a recent grant to IAVI awarded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Global has secured additional funding for this project ($1.7 million for 5 years through 2011).
Technology 3 – Anticounterfeiting
- Counterfeit, gray market, and illegally reimported products contribute to the problem of vaccine access for poor countries. Global Vaccines has a sublicense to novel product authentication technology so that it may integrate anticounterfeiting measures into vaccine product design as means for making vaccines more accessible.
GV Connect
GV CONNECT provides the opportunity for individuals and outside organizations with interests in common with Global Vaccines to get involved in projects that will contribute to the improvement of health in populations of developing and undeveloped nations.
The Global Vaccines Team
- Clayton Beard, Ph.D., Director of Research
- Mario Barro, Ph.D., Lead Scientist
- Kelly Young, Ph.D., Staff Fellow
- Daniel Tonkin, Ph.D., Staff Fellow
- Jill Whitley, B.S., Research Assistant
- Tracie Todd, B.S., Research Assistant
- Thomas Mercolino, Ph.D., Vice President, Business Development
- Jake Wiltshire, B.A., Director of Development
- Elaine Smith, B.S., Business Manager